Anishinabe Academy is the Minneapolis Public School’s Native American Magnet school focusing on Ojibwe and Dakota academic achievement, language and culture. The goal of the program is to improve school readiness skills as well as learn the Dakota or Ojibwe languages. Anishinabe Academy has both an Ojibwe and a Dakota Wicoie Nandagikendan Pre-School Immersion site serving 20 children in its Ojibwe immersion classroom and 17 children in its Dakota immersion classroom. Wicoie Nandagikendan’s partnership with Anishinabe Academy resulted in it becoming the first public school in the US to have an indigenous language immersion program. Minneapolis Public Schools Indian Education Office and High Five are included in this partnership at Anishinabe Academy.
High Five, a child development program operated by the Early Childhood Department of the Minneapolis Public Schools, is for children ages four and five. High Five is similar to kindergarten, but geared for a younger child. Typically High Five programs operate three-hour sessions—except for the High Five partnership with Wicoie Nandagikendan Urban Immersion Program, which enables us to extend the programming day for Program children to six-hours per day: three hours/day in Ojibwe or Dakota and three hours/day in both English and Dakota or Ojibwe and Dakota. High Five partners with the Indian Education Office and AECP to provide one Dakota classroom and one Ojibwe classroom at Anishinabe Academy. The Minneapolis Public Schools Indian Education Office promotes a number of outstanding curricula, all designed to maximize student achievement and provide teachers with strategies for teaching American Indian students within a culturally based curriculum. This office provides support and information on “Our Success for the Future” and Minnesota Indian Teacher Training programs. The Wicoie Nandagikendan Staff translates this curriculum into Dakota and Ojibwe.
Four Directions Family Center (Reuben Lindh), our Ojibwe Wicoie Nandagikendan Pre-School Immersion site, provides culturally responsive early childhood and school-age care for up to 58 children ages 16 months to 12 years of age in the Little Earth American Indian community. Four Directions also provides children with a number of additional services besides language immersion programming, including occupational, speech, music, family and play therapy, in addition to full time child care. Four Directions is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young People, has a four star rating, (the highest possible), and is a Hennepin County Strong Beginnings site which is an enhanced early childhood model with lower teacher to child ratios, higher educational requirements for teachers, higher teacher pay and higher standards for exceptional care. Four Directions has the capacity to serve 14 children at a time in the Wicoie Nandagikendan Pre-School Immersion Nest program.
The University of Minnesota Department of American Indian Studies, established in 1969, is the oldest such program in the country with departmental status. Founded amidst the civil rights struggles of the sixties and early seventies, the program has long been committed to the development of theories and methodologies that reflect American Indian perspectives and it embraces ways of knowing that stand in contrast to the linear analytic Euro-American studies typically found in colleges and universities. The department’s base of formally educated and institutionally trained academicians is being supplemented increasingly by community resource people, including traditional leaders, elders and American Indian artists, writers, film makers, and musicians. Incorporation of such contributors into the teaching program acknowledges unique cultural wisdom and skills that are not typically available in formal, western institutions, but that are nonetheless essential to an understanding of American Indian cultures. The American Studies Department operates a Dakota and Ojibwe Immersion Teacher Certificate program, has trained the majority of the Wicoie Nandagikendan Pre-School Immersion Program’s Teachers, and provides Apprentice Immersion Teachers who are paired during their academic practicum with Wicoie Nandagikendan’s First Speakers.
Dakota Language Society has three major goals: 1) Bring the Dakota language to the classroom. 2) Bring the Dakota language into the home. 3) To make the Dakota not only a healthy living language, but to make Dakota a respected academic language as well. The Dakota Language Society partners with the Wicoie Nandagikendan Urban Immersion Program to develop materials in the Dakota language for the Dakota immersion classrooms and provides additional support for the Dakota Mentor/Apprentice teams.
The Minnesota Indian Affairs Council (MIAC) recently passed a resolution supporting Wicoie Nandagikendan. MIAC is the official liaison between the State of Minnesota and the eleven Minnesota Tribal Governments. The mission of the Indian Affairs Council is to protect the sovereignty of Minnesota Tribes and ensure the well being of American Indian citizens throughout the State of Minnesota. The MIAC provides a forum for and advises state government on issues of concern to Indian communities, and plays a central role in the development of state legislation and monitoring programs that affect the state’s American Indian population and tribal governments.
William Mitchell Law School Intellectual Property Law Clinic has committed to providing legal assistance related to obtaining approvals from publishers, authors and artists of materials that we intend to use in our curriculum, including materials that will be translated into Ojibwe or Dakota. The Law Clinic will also assist us in obtaining copyrights on any materials that are created by our staff, which will ensure our ability to market such materials as a means of generating revenues to support the program. In addition, the Law Clinic will assist AECP in drafting bylaws, articles of incorporation and other assistance required for establishing Wicoie Nandagikendan as an independent non-profit organization.
Migizi Communications, Inc., a Native American communications firm has committed to working with AECP to develop high quality DVD puppet shows as teaching aids that can be used to support Native language revitalization. In addition to their obvious usefulness in the Wicoie Nandagikendan Immersion Nests, we also intend to pursue marketing such materials as a means of generating revenues to support the program.
Minneapolis American Indian Center Ginew/Golden Eagle Program has assisted the Wicoie Nandagikendan Pre-School Immersion Program in the past with a number of projects including the summer language camp and community feasts. The Golden Eagle Program is committed to continue to assist with these activities during the proposed grant period.
The Division of Indian Work has committed to assist the Wicoie Nandagikendan Pre-School Immersion Program with a variety of activities including Wicoie Nandagikendan’s annual picnic and sharing resources, as well as reinforcing what is taught in the Immersion classrooms.
NAWAYEE Center School was a founding member of the Minneapolis Foundation of Alternative schools in the early 1970s. With a strong commitment to alternative education and serving American Indian youth, Center school evolved from an informal drop-in service to what it is today — an alternative urban high school focusing on American Indian youth in grades 7 through 12. Students taking Advanced Ojibwe Language classes gain skills in Ojibwe Language Immersion teaching by assisting in the Wicoie Nandagikendan Early Childhood Ojibwe Immersion classroom at the Four Directions Family Center. Since 1981, NAWAYEE Center School has received accreditation through the North Central Association of Schools and Colleges, the recognized governing body of public and private school certification.
